Weekend Fun: The BumBot

Posted on Mar 16, 2008

Although not politically correct, Rufus Terrill, owner of a downtown Atlanta bar named O’Terrills, has built a robot out to combat the drug dealers, petty thieves and vagrants who loiter around his establishment. The “BumBot,” as its has been affectionately named by his neighbors and customers, is basically a rubber-covered, meat smoker mounted onto a three-wheeled scooter and armed with a water cannon. Other features include an infrared camera, a spotlight, and a wireless megaphone.

Terrill controls the four foot tall, 300 lbs. BumBot with a remote, which sashay’s up to “unwanted elements” to deliver an ultimatum. Move out or get wet.

“I tell them they are trespassing, it’s private property, and they have to leave,” he said. “They throw bottles and cans at it. That’s when I shoot the water cannon. They just scatter like roaches,” Terrill offers.

Although not everyone in Atlanta is thrilled about the BumBot, including the police (who have yet to hear a complaint), Terrill’s fellow business owners are glad to have it around.

“I’m happy to have the robo-cop,” Lydia Meredith, who manages a nearby day care facility, Renaissance Learning Center, states. “I wish I had two or three more robo-cops. I wish I could afford to have a robo-cop myself.”